


PTSD - Post Traumatic Serena Departure

by catherinerussellstolemyheart



Category: Berena - Fandom, Holby City
Genre: Depression, F/F, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 12:31:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11828811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherinerussellstolemyheart/pseuds/catherinerussellstolemyheart
Summary: Bernie Wolfe has a history of mental health problems - this work is based on the assumption that self-harm is attention-seeking, that it's only something emotional teenagers do. Strong people don't harm themselves? Strong people don't suffer mental health issues?Bullsh*t





	PTSD - Post Traumatic Serena Departure

PTSD, she had heard this acronym many a time. Seen too many soldiers patched up in the field by her, only to fall apart when they got home, mental health services were an embarrassment to the country she fought for. She regretted her youthful judgement of mental health, considering colleague specialising in that field to be taking an easy route. She was more about getting elbow deep inside a mangled body, piecing it back together, and the mechanics of the human body.  
Her first tour soon changed her mind. She felt prepared, she was mentally strong. Came from a military family, stiff upper lip and all that. She grew up hearing her father’s heroic stories of war, being captivated by his bravery. She had played war with her cousins, always playing the hero, rescuing their pet cat from the clutches of the enemy.  
When she reached 18, and proudly told her father her medical training was to be funded by the RAMC and that she would be serving as he had, his initial pride in his daughter quickly diminished. At first it had been a cause for celebration, Major Thomas Wolfe proudly told comrades, friends, family that Berenice, his Berenice, his only child was to follow in his footsteps and serve her country. His wife, the emotionally distant Constance Wolfe, did not share his enthusiasm. Old fashioned sexism Bernie had thought, her mother didn’t approve of her only daughter delving into a man’s world. Then her father became distant, his once affectionate ways replaced by cold shoulders and brisk responses. She didn’t know why, not until Major Thomas Wolfe passed away some years later. Her mother had told her, as Bernie cried for the relationship with her father she never recovered, that once his excitement died down, he began to reminisce about all the horrors he had seen. He felt such guilt that his daughter was going to face them, knowing she could be killed at any moment. He blamed himself for filling her head with stories of heroics, whilst negating to mention the stories that haunted his dreams. She never knew until he passed that he father suffered nightmares, so terrifying he would wet himself, a huge shame that he made his ever doting Connie keep quiet.  
When she saw her first death, it shook her to the core. She had been on medical rotations of course, seen patients die. Seen old people take their last breaths surrounded by loved ones, seen broken people brought in to die alone having given up on life, she’d seen young people in accidents she couldn’t repair – all affected her in their own way, but nothing prepared her for seeing friends, colleagues, ripped apart by devices, for delving into the abdomen of a guy she shared rinks with last night, desperately trying to retrieve a bullet. Nothing prepared her for the coffins of colleagues she couldn’t save, watching their mothers weep, their partners collapse, and their children standing bewildered.  
Nothing prepared her for the inner turmoil of seeing the ‘enemy’ injured, not knowing if it were safe to save them, the psychological response of knowing this person could be responsible for the death of her friend, but also knowing that this was a human with a family – as a child it was so simple, the enemy were the baddies end of story. The turmoil as she watched bodies strewn around, knowing she couldn’t save all of them, trying to prioritise those with a chance of survival. Those images and the guilt would never leave her.  
Still, she managed it well. She had her cries, she retreated in to herself but she managed. Then came Cam. Her pregnancy wasn’t a total surprise, she & Marcus had decided to have a child though Bernie had thought, in the recesses of her mind, that pregnancy would take time. She didn’t think she would be pregnant within the month. She and Marcus argued when she returned to duty at 14 weeks pregnant, although she was forced to administrative duties. She disliked pregnancy, she didn’t like being tiptoed around and treated like a fragile item. She hated administration, she tried to put in for practical training, requests were denied. She found she resented being pregnant.  
She was due back in the UK at 32 weeks pregnant, when she managed to gain an extension to stay until 36 weeks Marcus was furious. She told herself baby’s come late, she had no desire to sit at home, heavily pregnant with Marcus whittling on. She didn’t want this baby to ruin her career and her sanity.  
When she went in to labour at 35 weeks everything changed, her animosity to her unborn child disappeared, and the great Berenice Wolfe was scared. It was the only time she truly asked for her mother. There was no time to get her back to the UK, her baby would be born in Bosnia, in a UK medic’s tent. Bernie cried, not with pain, but with the thought her child was premature, what if the baby needed medical attention, what if he or she needed an incubator? She thought of Marcus, missing his child’s birth because of her own selfishness and arrogance.  
Of course, when Came was placed on to her chest, the fear and self-anger disappeared, all she could focus on was this tiny baby boy looking up at her, eye’s wide as he took in this new world, gazing in to her eyes as she promised him she would protect him no matter what. His temperature dipped due to his early arrival but within 12hrs he was on a plane with his mother, his first plane journey at less than a year old, on his mother’s breast as the usual stoic and commanding Sergeant Wolfe cooed and wept at this tiny face, his little snuffles he made as he fussed at her breast. Not one person dared to comment on the strangeness of seeing Bernie Wolfe so feminine, so natural, he breast exposed and her eyes full of love. They were met by Marcus when they landed, her fears at his anger were immediately quashed as he kissed her head, kissed their son, told hr how proud of her he was, what an inspiration she was, how strong and how brave and she wept again.  
Those first few weeks were not the same. She struggled with breastfeeding, her breasts swollen and her nipples sore. She was tired, she was on edge, and she felt out of her depth. Broken bodies and war zones she was comfortable with, a crying person who couldn’t communicate and never seemed satisfied she had no idea about. Now she looks back she knows she had postnatal depression, knows now she should have talked to someone. But she didn’t, when she returned to active duty when Cameron was just shy of 13 months. Marcus had been furious, she was able to stay in the UK with a new contract until he was three, but that’s not what she wanted. Still, as she watched Cameron reached his chubby arms to her as she left, his face confused as she walked away, she felt the guilt, and it was like nothing she had experienced. It hit her hard she couldn’t bare it, it was overwhelming, all consuming, she thought about the men and women who had kissed their children goodbye but never returned, the people she couldn’t save, the people she didn’t save. The enormity of this feeling didn’t go when she arrived at her destination, she had never felt this before, this internal hatred for herself and by nightfall she was close to a panic attack, she shouted, hitting a glass with the back of her hand, the sharp pain of a shard of glass hitting her skin brought her back to the moment, she stood looking at her hand as crimson blood began to pool, it mesmerised her, she noticed the feeling was gone, she no longer felt that overwhelming feeling that made her want to claw her way out of her own skin.  
‘Sergeant – you OK in there?’ she heard her Captain call  
‘Shit’ she grabbed a towel to wrap around her hand, cursing her stupidity as her captain walked in, studying her for a moment.  
‘Sorry Sir, I slipped’ she lied, holding her hand tightly  
‘Baby brain still Wolfe? See the medics – yes I know you’re a medic but another medic please. Now Sergeant.’  
‘Yes sir’ she saluted, wincing and she felt the sharp pain in her hand.  
She learnt, over those next few days that by pressing her dressed wound and feeling that pain, it would reduce the intensity of her feelings.  
She was ashamed, so very ashamed of the fact that the more difficult her emotions became, the more she needed to feel hurt. If she lost a colleague, if she’d had an argument on the phone with Marcus, if Cam had cried when she was able to talk to him, she needed to feel something other than this internal pain. Soon her wound had healed and it was during a particularly bad night when she had seen children lying dead in the rubble of their home, that she did something she never thought she would – she cut her thigh. The relief was immense, and the location of the cut meant she could easily feel the pain when she needed. It was the start of a vicious circle, and soon her thighs were covered in lines of pain, from silvery white traces, to raised scar tissue to fresh cuts.  
She had been nervous of Marcus’s reaction, yet when she arrived home, and they were intimate, he never said anything. Whether he noticed and chose not to mention it, whether he didn’t know how to mention it or he just didn’t notice she didn’t know. She knew eventually he must have noticed, it’s difficult not to notice your wife has suspicious scars covering her thighs, but he never mentioned it, so she never brought it up.  
When Charlotte was born she enjoyed being a mother much more, Cameron was at an interesting age and she found herself lost in how incredible she found this boy. When she returned back to active duty this time, she fought to keep it together, she didn’t want to leave her children, but she had to.  
As the children grew, and their dependence lessened, Bernie often felt like a stranger in her own home, when she was back form tour, although the children were keen to greet her, it was Marcus they went to for love and affection, for comfort, for help. Bernie felt redundant. She no longer looked forward to returning to Marcus, not like in the early days when after a tour they would make love for hours upon hours. Months of pent up energy being given to one another.  
Then there was Alex, and when her an Alex first kissed everything felt right, she knew deep down she was gay, had always known but kept it well hidden from everyone, including herself, but Alex had the softest lips, the most amazing body, Bernie got lost just stroking her curves. When they gave in to lust, Bernie forgot about the scars, some fresh, on her thighs. She only remembered when Alex gasped, when she looked at Bernie, her eyes welling up with tears.  
‘Bern’  
‘Don’t, just…just don’t’ Bernie whispered, not meeting Alex’s eyes, moving to re-dress herself.  
‘Stop, Bern stop’ Alex forced her to halt her movements, and then Alex kissed her, she kissed her neck, between her breasts. She kissed her hip, and then she kissed the scars on Bernie’s thighs, gently, but with intent, until her mouth found Bernie’s centre, causing Bernie to cry out, back arching. This was what sex should feel like she thought. They didn’t talk about Bernie’s scars, didn’t need to. If Alex noticed a fresh injury, she would just kiss her, make her feel safe and OK. Bernie found it helped, and it was Alex who mentioned, after about 4 months, that no fresh cuts had emerged within the past 8 weeks. Bernie felt proud, she felt relieved, she was beating this vicious cycle without even knowing.  
When she was hit by the IED, everything changed. She had to forget Alex, Marcus loved her so much and the thought of hurting him caused her to feel those feelings again. She was thankful in some ways that she was incapacitated, or she may have resorted to self-harm again.  
During the divorce, she hurt emotionally, when Marcus threw cruel jibes at her and when he turned the children against her. When he told her ‘what would your precious army think if they knew you fucked your junior and cut your legs for fun’ she crumpled, all these years he had known and never once offered any form of support. She realised then she couldn’t return to that behaviour, not if he were to use it against her. She also realised that despite a brief affair, Alex had shown her compassion, understanding and love whereas Marcus only served to shame her.  
When she kissed Serena, she felt those feelings again, she fought them. She used her words, she spoke to Serena, and although it hurt to end things before they really began, she knew the alternative – the inevitable heartbreak and her return to harm – would be worse.  
When Serena kissed her, to keep her from Ukraine, she was ready to accept this love. Then she thought, her scars, would Serena still want a big macho army medic who had cut herself like an emotional teenager? The risk of her shameful secret being revealed scared her, so she fled.  
Ultimately, fleeing to Kiev was the time she relapsed into self-harm, she couldn’t cope with that feeling of loneliness and self-hatred any more. She decided that by giving her and Serena a chance, she could redeem herself (to herself) by being kind to herself for once. So she did.  
They never talked about Bernie’s scars, to be honest whenever they were naked there wasn’t much time for talking, aside of gasps of pleasure, the whisper of each other’s names and various profanities that accompanied multiple orgasms.  
Bernie knew what PTSD was, had seen it several times, admitted perhaps there had been a time she had been affected, knew Serena was suffering PTSD from Elinor’s death. Now Serena was gone, and Bernie had a new understanding of PTSD – Post Traumatic Serena Departure – and it hurt, it hurt beyond belief. Flashbacks of happy times were harder to deal with than flashbacks of broken Serena.  
She wasn’t coping, but her perfected mask of ‘everything’s OK’ was well rehearsed and in place. But this was too much, too much for her to handle. When it got too much she knew she was going to hurt herself, didn’t see any other way of getting some relief.  
For the first time since her brief relapse in Kiev, she reached for her self-harm kit. A morbid prospect, she had taken to keeping sterile blades, alcohol wipes, bandages and steri strips in a small case – better to plan ahead than risk giving in during the heat of the moment and harming herself further than intended. As she opened the case, a note fell out, much to her surprise.  
‘Bernie, I’m sorry we never discussed this. I know how ashamed you were of your scars, so I didn’t mention them. It was cowardly of me I know. I know I’ve been horrid to you these past few months, but believe me when I say that if it weren’t for you this whole situation would have been infinitely worse. Maybe I’m overestimating myself here, or underestimating you, but if you are reading this I know why. So let me say this, you are the most fantastic, fearless doctor in the entire hospital, and I love you. If you need to do this darling, do so knowing that I won’t judge you and that I love you. But I want you to fight it darling, because you are too precious to be harmed in anyway. Call me, message me, do whatever you need to do, but always remember I love you. Serena x’  
She sobbed, and she sobbed, and she sobbed, and after an hour of crying so hard her tears ran dry and her chest hurt, she realised that she no longer felt the need to harm. The crying had released her from that overwhelming feeling. She could cope, and she bloody well did.


End file.
